


Please Stop Wittering On About Vegetables I Couldn't Care Less

by Poplar-2345 (Poplar_2345)



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 10:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10274429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poplar_2345/pseuds/Poplar-2345
Summary: A story about nuns, nurses, a doctor or two, and God ... maybe.





	

At night she would wander down the stately corridor with its high beams, blank walls, wood-panelled flooring, and the silence which held at once both comfort and something filled with discontent and unease. The first to rise and the last to bed. Waiting until everyone else had used the bathroom before making use of it herself. Letting others take advantage of the hot water, of the fresh warm bread, of the precious extra few moments wrapped in a duvet.

She preferred to bathe last anyway. Preferred to take her time, to not rush and hurry and worry about making sure that there was plenty for whomever followed behind her. Plenty of cake. Plenty of time. Plenty of hot water. Plenty of sleep. Of clean and fresh equipment. She never minded. Never sought praise. Never looked for confirmation or validation.

There was something precious about the late hours. The hours of dark when beds were sought and calm had settled. Aside from whomever sat within earshot of the telephone, the great house felt empty. And it was those hours that were most precious to her, for in them held no expectation, no responsibility, no right or wrong. In these hours, until the silence and peace was shattered by the reality of the telephone, or a rough shake of the shoulder, it was as if she were the only one in all of existence. It was as if God set aside these late hours just for her.

So she’d take her time as she bathed; taking the time to not only wash, but condition, brush and then dry her hair – hair which lay hidden beneath a wimple and cap, but hair nonetheless that shone bright when the light caught it. She could take her time as she washed the day away and prepared for bed in preparation for the inevitable call out that would come sometime between midnight and breakfast.

Some nights as she left the bathroom she’d take a wander through the upper floors of Nonnatus; clad in her plain old nightgown and her cap, with her bag of toiletries dangling from her right hand, she’d meander like a ghost until her feet took her to the one door she could freely pass through. Her own. A room just as plain as the nightgown she sported, or the habit she donned when the sun rose or the telephone called.

A little worn around the edges, perhaps a bit threadbare in a place or two, maybe tattered and frayed along the hem or the collar or the cuff … the room, much like her clothes – functional, practical, utilitarian – hadn’t always been hers; once belonging to someone else before her and most likely belonging to someone else afterwards. Patched and mended and made presentable once again, the clothes, the shoes, the bed, the room, all of it would be given to someone else the moment she had no more use of them. Until that day, the room, the clothes, the bible, were hers.

It neither bothered nor concerned her; it was a simple fact of the life she lived. She had no need for material wealth. No need for fresh, new, sparkling items when there were plenty of things worn but not beyond saving that she could make use of. Plenty of others who needed more than she needed and she was happy and content to let them take their pick first and foremost. She spent her days in service to the people of the community, and to God. Bringing forth life into the world and tending to the hurts and ills that inevitably arose because life wasn’t about getting through it unscathed after all. It was about the journey taken in between birth and death. She spent her days in service to others; the dark hours were just for her. Hours – precious few of them – spent as she wished them to be spent; praying, thinking, sleeping, listening … wandering and wondering.

She knew every inch of Nonnatus House. Knew which of the floorboards creaked and which groaned when stepped upon. She knew which of the windows rattled in the winter and which ones needed coaxing open during the summer. Knew how to get to one end of the House to the other a dozen different ways, and she knew she could do it blindfolded if the need arose. She knew how to latch the gate so that Evie the pig and her piglet didn’t escape from the pen and trample the vegetable garden. She knew where Fred kept his tool box and which hammer or screwdriver to use when the old bookshelves started to warp out of alignment. She knew that there was a nest of swallows in the loft, and that the bat box had once housed a family of robins. She knew that the squirrels liked best the south side of the house because of the eaves and that the rats snuck in through the gap in the kitchen wall by the floor because one time Fred had had to get the floor boards up to fix a burst pipe that had flooded all the way to the front door.

She knew every inch of the house because she roamed it while everyone slept with only the moon and the stars and God to keep her company. As she walked, if it was the right side of midnight, she would often hear the muted giggles, the muffled hum of conversation, and the distorted rhythm of music from behind a closed door. Sometimes she would linger. Sometime she would idle in the shadow, staring at the door that would be closed firm to her. And sometimes became often. And often in turn became always.

And by the time that sometimes had become always, it was too late. Because by the point she realised that something was terribly, terribly wrong, she also realised that she was terribly, terribly alone. And she just didn’t know what to do.

* * *

They didn’t mean to do it. In fact they hadn’t even realised they were doing it. It was simply a moment of survival; _quick shut the door or the nuns will hear!_ Shutting the door to protect their secret little rendezvous, and shutting the door out of respect for the nuns so as not to disturb them during the Great Silence.

But it still cut her to the quick.

Because while the nurses hadn’t known she’d been lingering outside the door, gazing transfixed into the golden light that spilled from the gap from the last person inside who’d accidentally left it ajar, she had known for she had been there. And it hurt.

The worst part of it was knowing that she shouldn’t have been. Knowing that her exclusion was expected and what was meant to be and that there hadn’t been anything malicious or cruel meant by it. That they hadn’t even known she was there! Or suspected she would be. The worst was knowing that she was suffering in silence and in knowing that, therefore why would anyone ever think that such an act would cause her distress. Why would anyone think to invite her inside when she was neither wanted nor thought to be wanting?

Through the gap between the door and the jamb, the glimpse she’d caught had seemed like something out of fantasy. A golden lit paradise of warmth and love and friendship and support and cherishment and laughter and joy. It had felt like being shut out in the cold when Cynthia had closed the door unknowingly in her face. Felt like the echoing slam of some great gate forever barring her from that utopian life that she’d forever dreamed of but could never have.

She made it perhaps two feet further down the nurses’ corridor before she collapsed against the panelled wall and slid to the floor. She did not cry, she just sat in a cold realisation that had been creeping over her for a while now, silently snuffing out the joy and contentment and peace she had been filled with ever since she took her vows: she was not happy.

A crumpled mess of uncertainty trapped in the abyss of unknowing; afraid and alone and desperate for a guiding light or a helping hand. That’s what she’d become. But though she looked up desperately for that helping hand, that guiding light, none appeared; no awakening epiphany of enlightenment suddenly brought startling clarity upon her. For now she was left to brave the waters of confusion alone, in wild feral hope that some shore would eventually appear upon the horizon. That order would once again rule over the chaos.

* * *

If only she knew what was wrong. Then perhaps she’d be able to ask for help to put it right.

All she knew was that she yearned. Yearned for more. For life. For excitement. For anticipation. For heartache and loss but also love and joy and family and all of it. She yearned for that dream she’d surrendered when she donned the postulant’s dress, the dream she never thought she’d ever have or ever get. A life, if truth be told, that had been taken from her without her permission long before she’d made it to London one cold September eleven years ago.

Her arrival had occurred a mere five minutes before Sister Julienne’s. Alone, terrified, cast out of her home, she’d run from Scotland all the way to London because London was where her aunt lived. The only member of her family that wasn’t dead or wasn’t convinced she’d brought all her troubles on herself. Cold and hungry and terrified beyond anything, she’d not realised it had been raining until Sister Evangelina opened the great doors she’d been hammering on, taken one look at her, and then ushered her in without a word except to demand dry clean clothes from Sister Monica Joan – the then Sister-In-Charge.

But even though she’d found her way to the safety and care of her aunt, she’d not been able to calm down until Sister Julienne had arrived, early – naturally – to take up Sister Monica Joan’s position. Sister Julienne had brushed Sister Evangelina’s protective hold on her aside and taken her into her own arms without a word and suddenly everything seemed to be a little bit better. A little bit less terrifying and a little bit like it would be alright. Less than a year later she left Nonnatus to begin her training at the London; two years of training and then she was back, wearing a uniform and yet still that terrified child who’d ran all the way from Scotland to London.

The decision to become a nun alongside her aunt and the others had been easy. Simple. The solution to a problem that had been haunting her for years. She didn’t need to be brave if she was a nun because God could be brave for her, her Sisters could be brave for her. She didn’t need to worry about making friends and finding a boy and getting married and having children and all the rest of it. She found a way to escape from what terrified her most – her past and her future – and she had thrived for it.

Thrived in this life until this life had become a burden and a leash. Chaffing her. Restricting her. Holding her back when all she wanted to do was fly. Obey. Be Patient. Be Kind. Be Humble. Do unto others as you’d have done to you. It was all very well, but she wanted more than that. Wanted what she’d been terrified of, and yet terrified of wanting it. Oh it was all so jumbled up and confusing and nothing seemed to make much sense. How could she ask for help when she couldn’t explain herself at all?

How could she go to Sister Julienne, to the woman who was more than a mother to her, and tell her that she was afraid and lost and just as helpless as she’d been when they first met that rain-stormed night in September so very long ago? How could she face Sister Evangelina when her aunt had done nothing but support and cherish and protect her since her mother had died? How could she look Sister Monica Joan in the eye knowing that their love and their unwavering commitment had built her up from that child so lost in the dark to someone capable of many things … and yet who was right back to where she had been when she’d begun this life with them.

She was failing them. Letting them down by wanting more than she should. She’d given it all up gladly and willingly and eagerly, desperate to be rid of that life and that girl and that person who had been through so much only to fumble and fall at the last hurdle. Because she had. Failed when it mattered: she’d been here at Nonnatus so young and fresh-faced and wide-eyed just as Jenny Lee and Trixie Franklin and Cynthia Millar and Chummy were, here with her whole life ahead of her and yet she’d been unable to seize it. Instead she let it terrify her and so she had sought out the Lord and fled into his embrace. Her Sisters had welcomed her with open arms and without judgement and for that she was now dishonouring them by wanting more than what she deserved.

* * *

The floor was cold and hard beneath her; a solid surface that kept her upright and refused to let her fall; stern and hard and as unyielding as her father had been. As unbendable as her father’s will the day he shut the door on her. Somewhere nearby a clock was ticking patiently and steadily, absently marking the moments without pause or end or complaint. It was probably the old grandfather clock at the end of the west corridor; she could picture it now, over looked and forgotten, a statement of everyday ordinariness that needed no comment or second glance or acknowledgement. Rather like her.

There but not there. Seen but unseen.

She wondered what the nurses were talking about. Wondered if they had wangled out Jenny Lee’s story yet from her. Probably. They were all very close and trusting of one another after all. The reluctance Jenny had to share had probably been overcome by now, and they were probably sitting in Jenny’s room discussing it right now. Talking about Jimmy and Alec and that man Jenny had loved before coming to Nonnatus … what was his name? Cyril? Graham? Gerald?

Or perhaps they were discussing Cynthia’s brother. The one that died young. Stillborn, she thinks, or maybe just very poorly. The family were living up near Reading way … or Hull? One or the other. And Cynthia was popping down there – up there – at the weekend for a long over-due visit because it was her grandfather’s birthday yesterday. She wondered what gift Cynthia had gotten her grandfather, or if it had yet to be purchased. Knowing Cynthia it’d be something sentimental. Something that meant something to her or her grandfather. Something thoughtful.

She doubted that they were discussing Trixie’s story; she’d noticed how the bleach-blonde smoothly and expertly evaded any meaningful and deep answer about her tale when asked. Not to say that Trixie never shared, it was just that she hadn’t ever overheard anything to tell her otherwise. No titbit of information learned in passing that she could then piece together into a whole as she’d done with Cynthia and Jenny.

But then she was hardly one to go about judging people for holding back from opening up to their friends. Even without the unspoken rule that everyone seemed to abide by – _don’t ever ask a nun why she became a nun_ – which prevented anyone from asking, she doubted she’d be inclined to answer with any truth or substance. Which led her to believe that there was something in Trixie’s past that she didn’t wish to talk about … because there were things in her past that that she didn’t wish to talk about.

Which had her wondering what the nurses would be discussing if she were among them … would her story be the one being uncovered as they sat on Jenny Lee’s bed with a glass of alcohol each, hair in rollers and pins. What would they make of it – of _her_ – when it was over? Would they believe her story as Sister Julienne and Monica Joan and Evangelina had done, or would they take the view of her father and turn their backs? The thought alone of those kind girls turning away because of her past seemed unthinkable; their work in the community exposing them to stories just as and even more harrowing and uncomfortable than her own. Surely they’d understand and not judge her for it? But then she remembered how she’d once thought as she was now about the kind people in her village up in Scotland before they had decided, as her father did, that she was a nasty little jealous liar who spread awful nasty things about the vicar’s son.

All in all, it was a good thing she was under no obligation to divulge her past. A good thing she wasn’t close with anyone enough to warrant the need to share such tender and sensitive and vulnerable things about herself. A good thing because while she doubted the nurses would pry and insist on digging it out of her, there would forever be that weight hanging over her, that pressure to spill all because they trusted her with their own stories … yes. Yes it was a good thing.

The habit protected her. It always had and it always would. That was part the reason she’d put it on in the first place, after all.

Her aunt knew it all. She’d been unable to contain herself and it’d come pouring out that first night as Sister Evangelina pulled her out of the rain; great gulping sobbing breaths mingling with an accent that had gotten so thick it had become almost unintelligible in her distress. When Sister Julienne arrived and calmed her down, she’d managed to tell between hiccups and the trust of those three women so complete that they had never, not once, questioned it. Never once asked her to repeat it or discuss it or confront it. She’d told Mother Jesu Emmanuel before taking her life vows; had felt that as the spiritual leader and mother of the Order that she really ought to tell her the truth. And Mother Jesu Emmanuel had merely held her as she sobbed and promised that it changed absolutely nothing in her eyes or in the eye of the Lord.

She might have sat there all night, her bottom numb, her legs tingling, her spine aching from the slouched position, if the shrill ring of the telephone hadn’t cut through the stillness with an abrupt and unceasing demand. There was a series of muffled noised in Jenny’s room and she managed to stagger to her feet and stumble forwards across the hall to seize open the linen closet before Jenny’s door opened. Hiding with the closet door cracked a splinter, she watched the shadowy figures of Trixie and Cynthia pass her by as they made their way to their beds before they were discovered missing by Sister Evangelina.

Her legs flashing with painful cramps as the blood rushed to them, trying to wake them after so long sat on the cold hard ground, she slipped out of the linen closet and hurried on silent feet to her own room before she, too, was discovered out of bed.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a rambling and evolved into a life of its own.  
> Please let me know what you think :) I've got a general idea of more chapters if people are interested.  
> (How about that S6 Finale huh?)


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